Diversity & trust

Posted by on June 16, 2007; This entry is filed under Uncategorized.
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The New York Times Magazine has a piece up about Robert Putnam’s work which shows that ethnic & racial diversity decreases trust, not just between groups but between and individual and society as a whole.

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23 Comments

  1. Cuchulkhan June 17th, 2007 at 8:06 am

    trust isn’t very high in homogenous africa either

  2. COOLDUDE June 17th, 2007 at 9:07 am

    take a look at the ethnic fractionalization index (ELF, lol) numbers for african countries. sub-saharan african countries are among the most ethnically diverse states. 
     
    http://humandevelopment.bu.edu/dev_indicators/show_info.cfm?index_id=234&data_type=1 
    http://gsociology.icaap.org/report/socsum.html 
    http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/posner/pdfs/ethnic_fraction.pdf

  3. razib June 17th, 2007 at 10:43 am

    well, there may not be anything special about ethnic or racial groups and diversity. e.g., in sicily everyone is of the same ethnic and religious group but trust isn’t high, but there the “diversity” is familial/local.

  4. Henri June 17th, 2007 at 1:42 pm

    Studies by Wendy Berry Mendes, a social psychologist at Harvard, and her colleagues find that when research subjects play a cooperative game with someone of another race, they can show physiological signs of distress 
     
    That’s bad news for diverse workplaces, but the good news is that these effects seem to go away once people get to know each other as individuals. 
     
    Similar research (both from Dartmouth, 2003): 
     
    “People with racially prejudiced attitudes may suffer a previously unrecognized cost for their outlook: temporary impairment of some forms of mental functioning.” 
     
    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-04/pu-tpo043003.php 
     
    And here: 
     
    “A new Dartmouth study reveals that interracial contact has a profound impact on a person’s attention and performance. The researchers found new evidence using brain imaging that white individuals attempt to control racial bias when exposed to black individuals, and that this act of suppressing bias exhausts mental resources.” 
     
    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-11/dc-iia111303.php

  5. Dragon Horse June 17th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

    “trust isn’t very high in homogenous africa either” 
     
    Africa not even close to homogenous.

  6. Henri June 17th, 2007 at 2:12 pm

    On the topic of diversity, trust, and politics, British Columbia has a new provincial political party. – 
     
    “British Columbia’s newest political party has bold plans, a platform still to be worked on and its four founders keen to make an impression on voters ? those who can speak Chinese, at least. 
     
    The Nation Alliance Party is believed to be the first party formed based on ethnicity. Its mission statement in Chinese on its website is to “create better living and working conditions for immigrants and raising the profile of all Chinese living overseas.“ 
     
    http://www.thestar.com/article/223825 
    http://www.nationalliance.com/ 
     
    Now, I don’t think much thought was put into the wording and I don’t think it was intentional, but I would have used “new Chinese-Canadians” or “new Canadians of Chinese descent” rather than “overseas Chinese”. The party has absolutely no chance of any electoral success, especially in BC’s first past the post system and I doubt they will even get any support from the Chinese-Canadian community, but it is an interesting anomaly nonetheless.

  7. Dareano June 17th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    Henri, it’s a good thing that Chinese-Canadian women only have 1.1 children on average.  
     
    source: stats Canada

  8. Looc June 17th, 2007 at 3:39 pm

    Racial diversity in the workforce may cause some mental friction but IMHO sexual diversity probably creates 100 times more mental stress. I would be interested to see which is more mentally taxing, men and women in the same environment or an all male, multiracial environment.

  9. randy June 17th, 2007 at 5:08 pm

    I read a bit about maybe as far back as one year ago. I went out and bought Bowling Alone as a result. Really interesting read. 
     
    Interesting comment Looc!

  10. Steve Sailer June 17th, 2007 at 11:44 pm

    I wrote a cover story for The American Conservative on Putnam’s long-covered up research on diversity a half year ago: 
     
    http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_01_15/cover.html

  11. Caledonian June 18th, 2007 at 6:52 am

    Africa is homogenous in the same way Europe is, or India, or China. 
     
    Which is to say: not really. Only if you lump diverse people together in one large, overarching category.

  12. Dragon Horse June 18th, 2007 at 7:19 am

    Caledonian : 
     
    Africa has far more languages and ethnicities than Europe, but then again Africa is as big as North America and Europe combined with a relatively low population density…

  13. Looc June 18th, 2007 at 7:47 am

    As for Africa being diverse: 
     
    A low level of transportation and communication infrastructure should directly correspond with higher levels of diversity among languages and people.

  14. razib June 18th, 2007 at 11:11 am

    Africa has far more languages and ethnicities than Europe, but then again Africa is as big as North America and Europe combined with a relatively low population density… 
     
    substitute “nigeria” for “africa.” still works. so size isn’t an issue. africa is as linguistically diverse as europe was before the rise of rome and the extinction of thousands of local dialects and languages in the face of latin (and to some extent greek).

  15. Cuchulkhan June 18th, 2007 at 11:46 am

    wow, that off the cuff comment before rushing to the golf course certainly triggered an avalanche: I concede, Africa’s diverse! My enter key should have a safety look of some sort, like the ones you put on fridges for children.

  16. Joseph Hertzlinger June 18th, 2007 at 12:28 pm

    Putnam’s research clearly means that ethnic diversity makes people less gullible.

  17. TGGP June 18th, 2007 at 2:52 pm

    Caledonian, is China that diverse (belonging in the same sort of category as Africa, Europe and India)? I thought that in China a large majority (whereas the others only have pluralities) were Han and spoke Mandarin.

  18. TGGP June 18th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    Yeah, I just checked http://gsociology.icaap.org/report/socsum.html and in 1961 India was in the “most fractionalized” with an ELF over 0.88 category, while China was in the “least fractionalized” with ELF under 0.2, and both stayed in their respective categories in 1981.

  19. Intellectual Pariah June 19th, 2007 at 9:46 am

    Looc: Sexual diversity => mental stress? In the case of males and females, I doubt it. In the case of gays and straights, I think you’re on to something.

  20. Dragon Horse June 19th, 2007 at 10:58 am

    TGGP: 
     
    China is like 93% Han Chinese. That means though, that out of 1.3 billion folks, you have 91 million minorities? 
     
    The thing is most of these minorities live on big reservations (autonomous regions). 
     
    I would say though, after living in China, this is misleading. Anyone from Beijing who has lived in Shanghai will tell you they act differently and the local dialect is quite different from Mandarin so you will not be able to understand people on the street unless they speak to you in Mandarin. Also Chinese tend to treat people who don’t speak their dialect (hence from their region in China) as outsiders. 
     
    My experience is China is a much more low trust society than Japan or Korea for example, however I”m not sure if that is “natural” or due to 50 years of communism. 
     
    It might be instructive to observe Taiwanese or Hong Kongers to see if this is cultural or a result of politics.

  21. Cuchulkhan June 19th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    High trust societies exhibit high levels of organizational capacity, Germany, Japan, Korea etc. The last few world cups have been hosted by well organized, trusting nations, western and east asian, it will be interesting to see how the 2010′s championship in South Africa turns out. I’m not holding my breath.

  22. Dragon Horse June 19th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

    I wonder how the Olympics will go in China next year. :-)

  23. sakthi June 24th, 2007 at 4:13 am

    I believe diversity is the thing which we practicing for so long years for our convenience,but we should avoid this..If we do so,there is the possibility of trust soon… 
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